Complex Numbers

Scorn on the Cob

Spring begins today! My local weather celebrates the occasion by being colder than it's been for a month.

Speaking of annoyances, another prompt from "JAFBG"  [XGC] today...

Share one 'hard limit' that would make you walk away from a relationship or friendship. Has that limit changed over time?

Let me answer the question before obeying the directive:

Yes. Yes, it has. And you might think that, as I get older and more desperate (in theory) for the kind of human connection that is denied to me due to my looks and personality, that I'd relax my standards a bit, but nothing could be further from the truth: I find I put up with less and less bullshit from people.

There are plenty of things I'll put up with in a friend, though, that I wouldn't want to deal with in a more intimate relationship. Veganism, or some other eating disorder, for example. If it's a friend, it doesn't affect me; eat what you want (if you try to claim moral high ground for it, though, we'll have a problem). But I'm not going to eat penance food, nor am I going to stop cooking meat-based dishes. Also, I'm pretty proud of my cooking, and would want to share it. The point being that it wouldn't make me any less a friend to someone, but that's all we'd be: friends.

So we need a dealbreaker that works for all kinds of relationships, and picking one is pretty obvious:

Being rude to service workers.

Now, obviously, all of us have bad days, sometimes. I'm not talking about the occasional snap. I mean a repeated pattern of treating cleaners, servers, receptionists, baristas, cashiers, bartenders, etc. (especially bartenders) like The Help.

Whether conscious or not, this kind of behavior is reflective of a hierarchical attitude: "some people are beneath me in social status and can be safely scorned; others are above me and must be appeased." So that's what I watch out for in potential friends: how they treat those of perceived lower social status.

And no, this doesn't lead to a virtue paradox: I don't think that rude people are beneath me; I just don't hang out with them if I can avoid it.